


we might break a little easier

by wolfiery (asswords)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Stiles, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Peter is evil, derek is an optimist, derek returns to beacon hills, set after s3a, the bite is a gift, the death is NOT Stiles or Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:26:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asswords/pseuds/wolfiery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was hoping that if anything was going to happen, it wouldn’t be related to him. Literally. But now he can’t just pass this problem onto Scott, who claims he has a plan, no matter how much he wants to. He can’t do it, because he’s too different, too changed and he’s maybe got an actual smart plan of his own. One that might not just be shoot first, ask questions later. It’s a step of maturity, in his opinion.</p><p>Stiles seems to think differently.</p><p>"We should totally shoot first. I am a big fan of shooting many, many times and asking zero questions, cause I could care less about all these old guys and their vendettas anymore. I say we shoot with wolfsbane bullets that are dipped in wolfsbane and then use a freaky sword and chop the body in half and send one half to China and the dick to Antarctica.”</p><p>Derek raises his eyebrows, “You’re kind of disturbing, you know that?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	we might break a little easier

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this idea would not leave my head at all. It’s inspired by [this](http://stereksextape.tumblr.com/post/58815588414) gifset, which I thought was a lot sadder if you really took the time to look at it, and that’s why I wanted to write this fic thingy.
> 
> I'm sorry for the angst and if anything was too out of character, idK. It's been a while since I've written something oops.

_The problem is - you think you have time._

**i.**

There’s a joke somewhere in the midst of it all, if Derek can take a second to glance at the story of his life. There’s some technical error that a fairy or something supernatural must have injected him with a potion of bad luck when he was born. But he doesn’t – look at his life, that is — because he knows there’d be nothing but pain. So he leaves the joke for the observers, the lovers, the patient part of him, for the part of him that isn’t guilty - a piece of him that barely exists.

He  _leaves_ , period.

It’s his turn to go again. His turn to run away because Beacon Hills can only offer someone so little solace, and with guys like him, the town doesn’t offer any or they offer too much.

He leaves with Cora and they travel until they can breathe again (it takes more than one city). He sees building lights and smells things he could have gone without as well as smelling the fresh scent of coffee beans being grounded when they pass through Seattle. They go through empty highways and pass by farms and ranches where there’s nothing but the land and highways blocked up with cars and traffic and noises. Beacon Hills felt so small, like a burden, compared to everything else – but he sees the farms and the open land, and wonders how that skyline feels so much bigger.

His comfort levels are higher again, and he’s self-aware enough to know that it’s because he hasn’t had to look over his shoulder when the road is only forward in a car, miles and miles and miles away, to a destiny where he’s not trying to save some teenager from dying. Again.

Cora complains a lot, but it’s okay, he doesn’t mind too much. He doesn’t talk too much either while they’re gone. He spends too long thinking, too long feeling, and too long remembering what his claws felt like piercing his own beta – the breath they both took, but one was the last. He thinks about how he was fooled again – self-consciously wonders if he’s actually cursed when it comes to relationships. He’s spent too long trying to replace every thought in his head with anger, but he’s struggling to do it when there’s nothing but peace and quiet around him. Nowadays, all he feels is exhaustion, broken down to the very core of his bones.

When his sister sees him staring at Lake Ontario from the sidelines, in the middle of a crowd on an empty bench, she knows well enough to leave him alone now. She tried to talk to him once, tell him that things turn out certain ways but they’re not always our fault – not even anyone else’s. Derek doesn’t fall for that. He has to believe there’s a reason this is all happening to him. And maybe one day he will, but the lake is quiet. Maybe he can enjoy silence, for once.

He has time to figure it out, anyways.

**ii.**

Derek comes back four months later, and blocks out any part of him that might feel guilty for it. He doesn’t bother to ask what’s been going on in terms of murders and innocent people dying, because he’ll find out soon enough – but right now there’s the same kind of silence he felt in Canada, in Seattle, in the deserts of New Mexico – so everything must be okay. Okay as it can be.

He slides the creaking thick door open, and takes a step into his loft, abandoned and empty because the furniture was smeared with dark red blood and the staircase was dislodged during a fight. Derek figures if it’s to the point where he can’t even recall which fight, then it’s for the better that he had gotten rid of all of it. There’s a difference between trying to clean up your own messes and masochism - he can see that now.  The window is completely shattered, and that’s something he’s not sure about. He can’t tell whether that window was a comfort or a doom, but it’s gone anyhow.

Within a week, he doesn’t do anything but go to some furniture stores and buy a more comfortable futon than he had before, so that maybe he’ll actually sleep this time around. He hires contractors to fix the window and the stairs and it doesn’t cost too much, thankfully. What he doesn’t do, is go see Scott, even though he knows that it’s appropriate to confront the Alpha when you arrive in a town. The boy doesn’t feel like he’s that formal though - all he really is is a better leader than Derek will ever be. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do now - if he’s an omega, he’ll just be hunted even - well, the same amount, really. It would feel surreal joining Scott’s pack, being the oldest beta and the only person who already graduated from teenage misfit to just misfit.

So, Derek takes his time to get his loft back in shape while he tries to figure it out and even updates some trivial features like getting a laptop.

He has all the time in the world to evolve now. He’ll always help Scott if the teen needs it, but it’s not all on his shoulders and that - that feels nice.

**iii.**

Stiles can take a second to step back because he has this innate ability to know when someone’s broken. So when he sees Derek Hale in a parking lot, something that no normal person passing by would, he leaves it alone. He can only see the outline of Derek, but he knows that leather jacket, knows that shoulder posture and most of all knows that the werewolf isn’t exactly fine.

It’s in his veins to be nosy, to poke around and help people even when they say they don’t need it - because he also has the ability to know when people are broken and  _need_ someone.

It comes from experience. Stiles hasn’t exactly been okay these days either - trying to repair something with his dad that he wasn’t prepared for. He also had to help Scott all over again with training because of his heightened Alpha senses and he’s trying his best not to call him out on his power trip, because every Alpha seems to go through it - so he leaves it alone again and lets Scott run more in the woods, let’s him use the tiring ‘I’m the Alpha’ line just like everyone else.

He’s felt misplaced since the raging storm that was a clusterfuck of Alphas left the town. It’s all quiet again, but this time he knows that that’s not a good sign. He paces on the edge of worry everywhere he goes. Sometimes he thinks he hears growling when he’s in the mall and looking through t-shirts so he stops and stills and holds his breath. He tells himself that he’s being silly, that it’s ridiculous, and  _why would a werewolf attack you in a Gap store, seriously, you idiot_. But Stiles has learned one thing that everyone else seems to have forgotten.

Life is fucking short.

**iv.**

The doorbell rings to Stiles’ front door on a Saturday, early in the morning - way,  _way_ too early considering it’s the first full night of sleep he’s had in awhile. He gets up and stumbles down the stairs until he sees his dad go to answer it. They’re both confused, but at least the Sheriff is up to date since a former Alpha is standing on his house’s front stairs.

Stiles wants to take a second to appreciate that Derek learned how to use doorways, but he wasn’t  _that_ bad - well, he was, but it seems like he’s learning.

“Can I help you?” The Sheriff asks warily, crossing his arms in the defensive position. Stiles would comment on how there was no reason to be so sassy, but he’s groggy and half-awake and he wants to know as much as his dad does.

“I wanted to apologize for anything I might have done,” Derek starts, looking like he’s in pain just by speaking the words out loud.

Something in Stiles snaps awake, a part of him so blindedly  _angry_  and he doesn’t even know why, “What is this? The AA? Are you going around and making amends? What the hell are you even talking about?”

Finally,  _finally_ , Derek cracks into his old self when he rolls his eyes at Stiles, frustrated at the wonderful comments that the teen made. “There’s nothing wrong with doing that. Plus, I thought I could answer any questions your dad might have.”

“Dr. Deaton already —” His dad begins, but is cut off by his pissed off son.

“You could have answered them four months ago. When you left right after the shit storm on everyone’s yards,” Stiles can’t even figure out what he’s trying to say anymore, what he’s so mad about, and what exactly he’s blaming Derek for. He just wants to blame someone. He wants to say this can all be pinned on someone. Because it’s the Hale name that feels like it’s poisoned Stiles’ life, and it’s  _Derek_  who left for four months.

“I’ll come back another time,” Derek says, restraining himself from blowing up at the teenager in front of him, probably thinking of what a stupid mistake it was to come over here and try.

Stiles scoffs at that moment, because that’s really the problem - Derek always seems to think there’s more time to deal with things, while Stiles clings to impossible seconds.

**v.**

When Stiles was five years old, he told his mom that the earth felt like it was shaking. His mom laughed at him, because they were walking on a bridge and the cars zooming past them just barely moved the structure. She explained it all to him, told him the physics and the energy transfers because she was a scientist who could teach. Claudia was a scientist who still believed in the impossible though - still told her son of stories of vampires and the ghosts in the basement and how they were friendly, like Casper.

Sometimes Stiles tries to look back and remember things that she told him, but they slip away from him, until the point where he can’t tell if he’s making a memory up or not. And that hurts sometimes, because there were so many moments he had with his mom that he can’t hold onto.

**vi.**

Derek does come by again, but he does so through the window this time. Stiles wasn’t in his room for once, ironically deciding that he could eat a raw squirrel because he was so hungry. (He didn’t, he just had some microwave Mac and Cheese.) He’s walking up the stairs with the hot bowl of food and opens his bedroom door to see Derek halfway through coming in.

It’s a little ridiculous, but Stiles just freezes - because at that second, he figured it out. Why he was mad, and wanted to punch Derek in the face, and it was so simple and a little bizarre that he wanted to pinch himself but he was holding a bowl.

“You left,” Stiles says, like it’s an explanation, like it meant sense. “You left and you didn’t tell anyone.”

“I -” Derek has never looked so shocked, except on the day of the pool, when Stiles knew the word for what Jackson really was. “I went with Cora. I thought that was reason enough.”

The thing is, Stiles  _missed_  him. He missed Derek because he’s always seemed to be there when they needed him. And maybe things have been calm, and Dr. Deaton was a more wise choice for explaining everything to his dad, but Derek was like them, a part of the misfit bunch they all were, with a little more trust issues than usual.

“It’s - it’s fine,” Stiles grips the glass bowl with one hand tightly, and waves his free hand around like it’s dismissal. He walks over to his desk and sets the food down, his hands warm and red. It doesn’t hurt though - these days it takes more to feel something like that. Maybe it’s a little sad, but whatever it is, it’s the truth that he’s a little stronger now than he used to be.

"I still don’t know why you’re here," he admits, moving the fork around and only taking a bite when his stomach demands it. It feels wrong to be eating when there’s gonna be a heavy conversation like this sitting on his shoulders.

"I just wanted to…" And the beta werewolf was going to say something but he lets out a sigh, seems to cut the bullshit, "I don’t know, really."

"I was about to watch a movie," Stiles comments, sitting down.

"Oh," Derek is standing and he looks as lost as Stiles feels. "Sorry."

He’s not sure why he says anything after that, because Derek could leave then, and Stiles could be at peace with himself and his computer. But if there’s one thing Derek’s pretty fantastic at, it’s being quiet, and he wouldn’t mind some company.

"I mean, if you wanna stick around," he shrugs casually, cause at least he put the offer out there. He loads up his Netflix account and chooses the movie from his queue that he’s been meaning to watch for ages. When he looks over his shoulder, Derek is just starting to sit on the edge of his bed.

"Okay," is all the werewolf says. Stiles scoots his chair over, so that the beta can see his screen from where he’s sitting.

There’s no sound for two hours except for the voices coming from the speakers. And when the main character dies at the end, they both don’t say anything, but Stiles stills in his chair and listens to the sound of his window opening as Derek leaves.

**viii.**

Stiles was right about the calm before the storm, which was really no surprise on his part but seems to have shocked the hell out of his best friend when Peter starts to wreak havoc on the town. Scott is being trying to be halfway decent about it, saying they can save Peter like they saved Jackson. Since Stiles admires the good guy his best friend is, he doesn’t suggest that they just kill him. Again.

Scott’s still going through his power trip, so he says he’s got a plan but that he can’t tell anyone what it is. Again.

Too much of it is like history repeating itself. And Stiles already hates their history and thinks that the past should stay where it is.

There’s no sacrifices this time around, but there is a chaotic amount of murders and a quiet plan in place that Peter all has against them.

The main problem is that he knows how they work now - he’s deemed their psychotic little brains to perfection in his time of “helping out” and cooperating with them.

Derek doesn’t seem to react at all when his uncle flashes red eyes at him in the rain outside, shouting about his werewolf status.

He just asked one question, “Who’d it come from? The power?”

Peter laughed at that moment, while Scott was still trying to pick his jaw up from the ground. The pack was standing around a young female whose clothing was torn to shreds and had blood running alongside the torso of her body. She’d been dead for a couple of hours at that time, while they were all trying to figure out how it happened when Peter appeared.

"Why does it matter, Derek? You said yourself that you didn’t care about it anymore. But if it makes you feel better, no - it didn’t come from you when you decided to give everything up for your sister," He smiles, the kind of smile that would send shivers down anyone’s spine.

Stiles blinks, tries to calculate that maybe there was someone missing in the Alpha pack. That maybe Peter’s story about Derek was twisted to his own. But then he recalls that there was a whole summer where Derek and Isaac were looking for Boyd and Erica. He had all that time to plan this, and it’s a different observation when Stiles realizes that even though Peter is a part of Derek’s family, this might actually have nothing to do with him.

Any other time, and a fact like that would be refreshing. But now it’s too bitter, too off course from what they’re all used to. So Stiles just stands still, keeps his mouth shut, waits for the punchline that the beta’s uncle must have.

But it never comes. Instead, Peter sails into the night, running away and leaving behind a confused pack and a dead body that feels like it’s screaming at all of them.

Stiles thinks,  _All we ever do is find the bodies. And they all blame us._

**ix.**

Derek wants to believe that all the decisions in his life were made solely by him, because it’s easier to place blame on himself that way - something he’s volunteered to do ever since Paige. It was no problem to admit that he’s the one who ruined everything for his old family and this new broken family he’s gotten tangled with. He’s been oblivious to his streak of bad luck for awhile, but when Peter revealed his true nature, Derek had lost all the patience to be surprised.

He tells himself it’s because he’s never bothered to trust Peter ever since he brought himself back to life, but then he thinks about the manipulation about Cora and realizes he accidentally did.

Derek can always find something to blame himself in, and tells himself that he’s been betrayed so often that he should know better by now. But he’s gotten so excruciatingly tired, especially of trying to keep up with the details he shouldn’t have missed.

He was hoping that if anything was going to happen, it wouldn’t be related to him. Literally. But now he can’t just pass this problem onto Scott, who claims he has a plan, no matter how much he wants to. He can’t do it, because he’s too different, too changed and he’s maybe got an actual smart plan of his own. One that might not just be shoot first, ask questions later. It’s a step of maturity, in his opinion.

Stiles seems to think differently.

"We should totally shoot first. I am a big fan of shooting many, many times and asking  _zero_  questions, cause I could care less about all these old guys and their vendettas anymore. I say we shoot with wolfsbane bullets that are dipped in wolfsbane and then use a freaky sword and chop the body in half and send one half to China and the dick to Antarctica.”

Derek raises his eyebrows, “You’re kind of disturbing, you know that?”

"I dragged Scott to help me find half a body, of course I know that," But Stiles smiles a little after, still feeling a little gloat factor about Derek coming over to talk about a plan.

"But seriously, if there’s one thing we should have learned by now," And for once, Stiles isn’t talking about time and how it’s fucked him over. "It’s that none of our plans  _ever_  turn out the way we want them to.”

It feels like Derek’s mute for the longest time, sitting in thought and looking at the carpet in Stiles’ room. Finally, he clears his throat, looks incredibly gutted and vulnerable, “This one might.”

Stiles settles down into his chair again, after standing up and ranting about Peter, and frowns, confused at what Derek could be saying, “When did you become an optimist?”

“That’s the problem,” Derek laughs bitterly at himself, and the teen can’t help but not like the way it bounces off his walls and hits him in his gut, “I always was.”

And that seems to hold a little more logic in Stiles’ mind when he thinks back on all that happened to the guy. He must’ve thought that Kate was a good thing, that Paige was, and as well as Jennifer. Even more so, he probably didn’t think his uncle coming back to life was the worst thing. It doesn’t matter though - it’s all screwed Derek over just the same.

**x.**

The plan they had goes to shit, which is really no surprise. It completely counteracted with Scott’s plan, which messed everything up and is the reason why Stiles wishes these goddamn werewolves would learn to  _communicate_.

He could go on about how communication has always been the basis screwup of everything. Instead, he listens as the wind beats against his ears ears and how everything feels completely louder than it should. Derek is standing to the left of him, his shoulders sagging heavily, his eyes beaten down. He looks hopeless as well as completely heartbroken, knowing that he’s running out of options.

Scott’s plan to save Peter was a complete fuck up and waste of time considering that Peter already knew about it. He wanted to save him by reminiscing about old times and Peter’s family and how they wouldn’t want him to be who he is today. But that only seemed to enrage him more and caused him to shout, his claws snapping out, his eyes like dark pits of empty red, so similar to the ice blue they were before.

Because its his best friend with the heart of gold, Scott had a backup solution. He told everyone to surround Peter and that was the first mistake really, because Stiles knew probably wasn’t one of the wisest ideas to corner a werewolf who had the vendetta to kill people. The Alpha hurt Allison first with a claw to her face, a nasty bloody scar that will stay there forever.

Peter then faces his nephew, a calm, disarming tone as he speaks, “The problem, Derek, is you’re too trustworthy. You have all the trust issues in the world, but you still put yourself in the hands of strangers. Strangers like Cora. Family might just be your weak spot. Did you ever wonder where Cora’s been for the last six years? Did you ever ask?” He laughs when his only response is silence. “Of course you didn’t, she’s your  _sister_ , no questions asked.”

"I -" Derek tries to start, tries to maintain the little amount of control he has left on this situation, but finds himself completely flabbergasted instead. Blown out to hell with these proportions and totally in the dark.

"Your sister ran alongside this pack in northern California. That was no big deal, she didn’t betray you at all, if that’s what you’re thinking," Peter grins reassuringly, "No, she just unconsciously led me to my future. You see, Derek, the alpha of the pack she followed was a real piece of work to take down, but I managed. It was what came after, that really sold me as new alpha once again. Deucalion makes quite an entrance, and even better offers. So when he said to me, that he could use my help with Cora in exchange for  _your_ downfall, I saw no reason to deny it.”

"You bastard."

"Oh no, no, Derek, I’m a gentleman and Cora never knew it was me who killed her alpha or me who dragged her to that bank." He’s smiling coyly now, like the concept of letting out some of his secrets was just too giddy to not smile at.

“What do you want from me?” Derek wants to give up, because he’s exhausted and he doesn’t want to play games. And maybe he’s grown a lot since that time Scott first came to him, angry and frustrated about who his alpha was, because Derek knows that he was the one to play games then. He was the one who toyed the future of hopeful teens, convincing them to be a part of his pack, he was the one so used to the blood on his hands his whole life that a few more time wouldn’t hurt. It did hurt though, because when he snapped out of his reverie, his hands weren’t only soaked and drenched with blood but acquired a permanent scar of those around him. So, he wants to give up, wants to add his own blood to the hands of Peter and hope that maybe one day he’ll wake up too. 

“Didn’t you hear me, Derek? Your  _doom_.” Peter says, like he’s not the crazy one and scoffing at the ignorance of his nephew.

When Peter comes at him, Derek doesn’t even flinch, his claws coming out due to habit, and his body moving against his will but alongside his usual self-defense tactics. He doesn’t think - just takes a couple of blows and returns them, like routine. It really doesn’t matter to him anymore because as far as he’s concerned, he was always doomed anyways.

**xi.**

Stiles watches in horror as Derek suffers multiple blows to his guts and his entire body. The original plan was simple - trick Peter into a circle of mountain ash and then close it, trapping him. It was Derek’s idea to light him on fire, which shocked Stiles when he was told but didn’t have the heart to comment on the sentimental meaning of it. It doesn’t matter anyways, since Scott talked Peter into rage, which led to  _two_ hyper-aware werewolves, which led to Peter seeing the trail of mountain ash.

He hasn’t been sleeping well, and it should say something about himself when he  _hoped_  something supernatural was affecting him when Scott told him he wasn’t asleep in class and had written hundreds of styles of the words ‘wake up’. Stiles first connected it with what happened to Lydia before they discovered she was a banshee. But his dad made him go to his therapist and got prescribed anti-anxiety meds and the weird stuff stopped happening. He was disappointed, maybe hoping he could be like Lydia, hoping he could be some sort of help.

Which is exactly how he feels now, because Derek is getting torn apart and it’s all he can do to just stand there, his mouth hanging open in shock. Derek is fighting how he always does, no thought process behind any of it, just hit after hit. Scott is the one thinking, looking around since he has extra time to come up with a new plan on the spot. Stiles can’t do it anymore - he’s retired his plan-making status ever since he was talking to himself in Cora’s ambulance.

He’s waiting for the inevitable when he hears a rustle in the woods to his left and spots Allison with her bow and arrow, looking like their savior, and Isaac in tow behind her, looking like their knight. She fires an arrow into Peter’s side, while he was moving, so Stiles gives her some major points for that. Peter falls to his knees in front of Derek. Derek, who isn’t moving or taking advantage of this wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Allison shoots two more times, both in his legs to keep him to the ground.

That’s when Scott steps in, closer to the fight, closer to the man who’s tortured all of them in some way or another.

It’s then that Stiles realizes that Scott isn’t a killer and doesn’t intend to be, too proud of his true alpha status, and that Derek simply doesn’t want to be alpha. And this is how they both surrender to Peter, realizing their weaknesses.

Peter laughs loudly, but it’s obvious from the croaking sound that he’s in pain.

None of them are killers. It’s a damn shame since they’ve all come so far.

“Oh, this is fantastic,” Peter says, staring at the teenagers who have surrounded him. Stiles isn’t holding anything except his bottle of mountain ash, half full from the waste earlier. He pushes it open though, moving slowly while others look at him confused by his actions. He walks a circle around Peter, spreads the ash around thinly but enough and closes a circle. Peter couldn’t get up to escape it anyways.

There’s a darkness in Stiles heart that he painfully remembers. He had died and then he came back to life and he never forgot that. There’s another darkness inside of him, forlorn and pitiful. It’s the voice that tells him that predators aren’t always killers, but that humans are and that God is the most powerful one of all.

He walks over to Allison, a serious frown on his face and holds out his palm and hopes that she understands.

Derek doesn’t, bruised and broken on the sidelines.

“Stiles, what are you -”

Allison hands him one of her precious ring daggers, concerned but not judgemental enough to question or comment. He puts his empty vial of mountain ash in his pocket and takes out another, filled with a certain purple powder the werewolves all recognize. He holds out the dagger, pours some wolfsbane over it and walks into the circle.

“I told you, I don’t have the patience for old guys and their vendettas anymore.” He should feel more nervous, feel worse that it’s come to this. But this doesn’t even feel real to him anymore, just a part of his routine. And just before he makes one quick, swift stab into Peter’s heart, Peter bites him.

**xii.**

Two days later, when the bite still hasn’t taken, Stiles unconsciously decides to go into a panic attack, freaking out over how he’s going to die now because he wasn’t even capable of being a werewolf. Scott has been watching him like a hawk, trying to watch for Stiles to react to the fact that he killed Peter, but that part never comes - just Stiles being even more curious about what it’s like to be a werewolf and annoying him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Scott asks for the millionth time, with his hand between Stiles’ shoulder blades, trying to be comforting.

“Scott, I’m fine, okay? Peter deserved it and even more. Besides, it’s not like I killed a human,” Stiles mentions offhandedly. He feels Scott’s hand leave his back immediately and then he realizes what he’s said. The kind of truth that Scott doesn’t like to hear, the truthfulness he can’t exactly take back because he meant it.

“Scott, I -” Stiles stops, doesn’t try to explain himself, doesn’t try to say that Scott is human, because he’s _not_. But he feels bad anyways, because truth has a habit of doing that.

“No, no, you’re right,” Scott says, looking at the ground, obviously trying to brush it off. “I’m gonna go, okay? I have the ACTs on Monday.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay,” Stiles turns back to his computer after Scott leaves out his window. He feels his heartbeat skyrocket when he looks at the red, sore and bloody bite on the side of his arm. Standing up, he goes down the stairs to see his dad visibly worried since he was actually doing the dishes without Stiles having to ask him.

“Hey, dad?”

His dad jumps, turns around and forces a smile towards him. “How is - Are you -”

Stiles sighs, rolling his eyes, “Still not a werewolf.” He hasn’t had to lie to his dad for a while, but he bent some details about the night with Peter, saying it was self-defense, not mentioning that Peter was trapped and that Stiles took his time for most of it. His dad’s face already changed towards him so much after finding out the truth that Stiles couldn’t bear to change it to his dad thinking he was worse than the werewolves he spent his time with.

“I was wondering if I could go see Deaton? I’ve got a couple of questions for him.” Stiles fumbles with the zipper of his jacket and looks up to see his dad’s response.

“Yeah, sure. Just be home in time for dinner.”

**xiii.**

Stiles is immune. Not like Lydia was immune, according to Deaton. He didn’t tell the others but Stiles went to Deaton the day after being bitten, giving him a sample of werewolf blood - Peter’s - and human blood - his, just in case.

Deaton tells him a story, in that wispy, mythical way of his, about the time of healers and their bonds. Stiles took it all with a little grain of salt, too used to the multiple meanings of what Deaton says.

There is something that the veternarian was straightforward about that made Stiles heart stop for a second.

“It’s in your blood.”

“What’s in my blood?” Stiles asks, because that’s too figurative of a phrase to use while he sent Deaton _actual_  samples of his blood.

“I mean, your family. The immunity came from your mother,” Dr. Deaton says and then proceeds to show Stiles a book that must have been one hundred years old and the stories of healers. It didn’t make sense to him at all though, because if his mother is a healer, why couldn’t she just heal herself?

“Most likely, because her son needed it more than she did.”

And Stiles shakes again, but doesn’t have a panic attack. He leaves and almost wishes he could force himself into one.

**xiv.**

“I’m not gonna be a werewolf,” Stiles comments, his fingers holding onto the edge of the wooden picnic table he was sitting on. It’s weird to sit in the park in the daylight when he knows all the horrors of the night.

“I know, I heard,” Derek says, nodding his head in agreement to the information. When Stiles gives him a look of confusion, he explains, “Scott told me. He called me up, wanted to know where exactly I stand in the pack.”

“And where is that?” He responds, looking at the small pond far away from them. It’s not exactly like the stories of Lake Ontario that Derek told him about, but the water still has a calming effect, even if he’s scared of drowning.

“I’m not really sure, but I do stand with you guys, either way,” Derek says and bumps his shoulder against Stiles’ when he moves his arms around to cross over his chest. It’s a little cold outside, the season heading towards fall, and Derek’s only wearing a t-shirt and jeans and it’s clear that even his werewolf body heat isn’t enough for him.

It’s quiet for a moment before Derek breaks it, his voice soft, “Thanks for killing my uncle.”

There’s almost a hint of amusement behind it, so Stiles snorts, “Well, if you became an alpha again, it would’ve ruined all your progress into becoming a functional human being.”

Derek laughs softly, “Shut up.”

“What about your mother though?” Derek having questions for Stiles is rare, but Stiles seems to have been the center of attention in the pack lately so he takes it in stride.

“It makes a little sense now - how she was a scientist and a believer at the same time. It’s not like I can be mad at her for not telling me.”

“Are you disappointed?”

Stiles sucks in a deep breath through his lips and lets it out slowly. He knows what Derek is referring to, knows that Derek used to wax and wane about power often. “It’s not the first time I’ve been offered the bite, but it’s the first time I’ve received it. It made sense that it had to be Peter of all Alphas,” He pauses, knowing that he didn’t exactly answer the werewolf’s question. “But, you guys need a human in the pack who’s good at crossing those mountain ash boundaries. Lydia could have killed him, probably even wanted to, and so could Allison, but I’ve got enough heart for both of them to kill a werewolf,” He jokes, but it’s too bitter to take foolishly.

Derek doesn’t comment on the last part, but marvels at the teen next to him, “How does everything make sense to you?”

“That’s a rhetorical question now, right?” Stiles grins, turning his head to Derek. “You’re trying out all kinds, look at you, you socialite.”

The werewolf rolls his eyes and shuts his mouth, looking back to the pond for a split second and then turning back to Stiles, whose eyes are still on him, searching his face. Derek just noticed how close they’re sitting, like a horrible cliche that doesn’t happen in his life unless it’s bad luck.

Stiles leans in, kisses Derek who doesn’t pull away and embarrass him,  _thank god_ , and starts to shake when his lips pull apart from Derek’s. It’s cold, really, and he can’t figure out why he’s still sitting out here to begin with.

But he ducks his head, smiling when Derek asks one more question.

“Are you sure you have time for this?”

He snorts, looks back into those weird, always-changing eyes, and says, “No, but that hasn’t really stopped me before.”

He’s only seventeen though, so who knows? Maybe there’s still time on the table.


End file.
